Paul Alessandri Quoted in The New York Law Journal on the Legal Limits of Mayor-Elect Mamdani’s Rent Freeze Proposal
Paul Alessandri, member of BBG’s Litigation Department, was interviewed by Ryan Harroff for the New York Law Journal on potential legal challenges to mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s campaign promise to “freeze the rent.” The article, Under Mamdani, Will Real Estate Lawyers See Litigation or Deals?, covers potential legal challenges to Mamdani’s housing and rent plans, including those that may face an uphill battle with existing law.
“Never has a mayor said, prior to being elected, that he’s promising a four-year rent freeze for the duration of his mayorship,” Alessandri said. “From a legal standpoint, a rent freeze of this kind may encounter certain procedural and statutory challenges. Whether or not those challenges would ultimately succeed in court is less clear, but the proposal certainly pushes against established boundaries of how rent regulation has traditionally functioned.”
